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The Front National and French Workers

Sebastian Chwala spectrezine
A blanket assertion that the French working-class has shifted to the right is misleading. Rather there has been a “demobilization” of leftwing voters due to the deep crisis of the old industrial structures which has put labor and the left on the defensive. Old Communist strongholds have seen rising voter abstention. Workers vote for the FN in large numbers in regions where leftwing consciousness and organization had been weak.

The Front National and French Workers

Sebastian Chwala spectrezine
A blanket assertion that the French working-class has shifted to the right is misleading. Rather there has been a “demobilization” of leftwing voters due to the deep crisis of the old industrial structures which has put labor and the left on the defensive. Old Communist strongholds have seen rising voter abstention. Workers vote for the FN in large numbers in regions where leftwing consciousness and organization had been weak.

Tidbits - March 24, 2016 - Reader Comments: Brussels Attacks; Zika Virus; Bayard Rustin; Trump's Ideology and Working-Class Appeal; Labor Notes Conference; Abraham Lincoln Brigade; and more

Portside
Reader Comments: Zika Virus-Puerto Rico; Brussels Attacks; Elizabeth Warren; Bayard Rustin - from those who knew him; Letters from Langston; Dr. Quentin Young; Trump's Ideology of Violence and Working-Class Appeal; How Black Youth Helped Unseat Anita Alvarez; Demonstrating Against Trump; Future of Education-Colleges as Investments; Community Colleges; Announcements: Labor Notes Conference; Webinar: TPP is a feminist issue; 80th Annual Celebration Abraham Lincoln Brigade

"Ideation" Shows Unnerving Connection Between Corporate Sleaze and Designs for Mass Killing

Lucy Komisar The Komisar Scoop
Aaron Loeb's new play, Ideation", establishes perfectly the moral conundrum, the slippery slope of the amoral corporate/political project. You don't really know where to draw the line between the past, present and possible future. You only understand that the kind of morality represented by corporate sleaze and groupthink has seeped into areas where "a modest proposal" for killing is readily accepted by political decision-makers.

Overthrowing Dilma Rousseff - It's Class War, and Their Class is Winning

Alfredo Saad Filho The Bullet
The judicial coup against President Dilma Rousseff is the culmination of the deepest political crisis in Brazil for 50 years. Dilma's second victory sparked a heated panic among the neoliberal and U.S.-aligned opposition. The fourth consecutive election of a President affiliated to the centre-left PT (Workers' Party) was bad news for the opposition, because it suggested that PT founder Lu¡s In cio Lula da Silva could return in 2018.

What Americans Don't Get About Nordic Countries

Anu Partanen The Atlantic
When U.S. politicians talk about Scandinavian-style social welfare, they fail to explain the most important aspect of such policies: selfishness. The choices Nordic countries have made have little to do with altruism or kinship. Rather, Nordic people have made their decisions out of self-interest. Nordic nations offer their citizens - all of their citizens, but especially the middle class - high-quality services that save people a lot of money, time, and trouble.

The West Weighs In; Arizona Voting Suppression Scandal

Robert Borosage; Ari Berman
Tuesday voters flooded to the polls and caucuses in Arizona, Idaho and Utah. Hillary Clinton won Arizona, but Sanders gained in the delegate count by swamping her in the Idaho and Utah caucuses, generating turnouts that overwhelmed caucus sites. Arizona lines were so long because election officials in Phoenix's Maricopa County, the largest in the state, reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012 to 2016, to just one polling place per every 21,000 voters

The Zika Virus: Government Responses Add to Women’s Burden

Maisie Davies Red Pepper
The Zika virus, and responses to it, have shone a light on the inadequacies of abortion and family planning laws in Latin America. Nevertheless, the Zika outbreak represents an opportunity for Latin America to review its sexual health policies and address long overdue issues, from access to contraception and abortion to a machismo culture that fosters sexual violence and discrimination.

Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2016

Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy Prison Policy Initiative
This new report by the Prison Policy Initiative offers some much needed clarity by piecing together this country’s disparate systems of confinement.

The Truth About Abolition

Adam Rothman The Atlantic
A new book about the abolitionist movement puts African Americans in the center of the history of our country's movement to end slavery.